The Wind and The Rain
by AHumblePen
Summary: Written as a companion fic for Abbykat's 'Against the Wind' for the Day After Tomorrow fic challenge.


My home is under hundreds of feet of water. Don't matter which way I look, which home I count as home. Either way, hundreds of feet of water cover it.

I was born in New Orleans. It was a city like no other, and despite the fact that I'd been thrown out of it on my ass as much as welcomed back in like a prodigal son, I still loved that town. Loved watching Mardis Gras from the Bourbon Street balconies, and I loved all the dark, tattered secrets that passed over the tables of the poker games in the alleys of the Vieux Carre. I ain't never going to see them again, not since the Mississippi rose up like a demon and swallowed it all up.

As for Westchester, as for the place that half-heartedly took me in after I was chased out of Louisiana like, well, a thief in the night? Best I can figure it's under the same water that covers New Orleans, but solid and blocked together and preserved for the future generations to gawk at. If there are any future generations. Last I saw of the place, Rogue and I were rocketing out so fast I was starting to black out, and Jubilee was standing behind with big eyes and blue lips, fireworks dying in her hands.

We couldn't save her, too.

I don't think about how many X-men have got to be under the ice in New York. I don't think about the way Stormy burnt herself out trying to kill the cold. I don't think about it, because if I stopped to think about it, I'd stop and never start again, and that ain't fair to Roguey. She needs me as much as I need her, and even if some of them hate us, the people around here need us both maybe more than we need each other.

I seen the Apocalypse twice now, and I still don't believe in it. Damn world's too stubborn to let something like this or the M'kraan crystal keep it down. It's too proud to stay messed up for long. The only real question is how many of us will be left to see when the water goes back down again. Wouldn't it be funny if it was just me and Rogue left? We'd make the worst Adam and Eve ever. Never even see Eden.

Rogue goes out there every day looking for people stuck on roofs or clinging to trees. I don't know how she does it, finds the courage to crawl out of the blankets every morning--we ain't got a bed, really, just a pile of old blankets in a corner--and fly against the winds like some stubborn bird of prey. But every day she comes back with at least more refugee, and I got to go crawling somewhere else to find a towel or a blanket or something, some room somewhere to put whoever she's drug in. I don't mind, really, when it comes down to it; we do what we gotta do to survive.

That girl's probably got more of me in her than she's ever had before, and she's doing pretty well considering. The wet and the cold and the long hours and the fear gets to us both, and we forget or we don't care any more and the cuddling that's more like clinging to each other gets careless. I've gotten used to the way it feels, when it's so fast--like dipping my head in ice-water--gotten so good that I can almost control what she gets and what she doesn't. Ain't no secrets between us no more, but there's more problems out there driving us together than we can run away from. Took the end of the world to get us to grow up.

I've been elected head cook, and every day I find I'm thanking all those hard-learned lessons of Tante Mattie's kitchen and hoping she's okay. You grow up on the streets from your earliest memories, and you learn to eat anything. Grow up on New Orleans streets and you learn how to cook it, too. Comes out for the better in the end, because the refugees don't ask what it is I'm serving up and then I don't have to tell them. When the world's all water and wind, there sure ain't time for going down to the store for fresh beef.

Between that and playing living matchbox, I'm not sure I get any more rest than Rogue does. Sure, they're scared as hell by the eyes and the glowing pink, but damned if they don't come running if something's wet and needing lighting. All this time I was using my powers to fight people, and now I'm using them to hold them together. Chucky'd be so proud. So she goes out and weathers the storm that never ends and I stay at home and take care of the kids. Who'd have ever thought--Remy LeBeau, a stay at home Dad. Funny, I must've missed the fun part of having this many children. Guess the laughter's easy to forget when all you've got left is cold and fear.

I found a bottle of Chablis today, picking through the wreckage of the downtown area that ain't covered in mud or water. Maybe I'm being greedy, but I sure as hell ain't sharing it with all the gaping bird mouths here. I hid it under the blankets in our room, and me and Roguey can have it all to ourselves. I don't know what we're celebrating--maybe that we've made it this far--but I figure we owe ourselves a little down time and a little alcohol. Hell, a lot of alcohol, but I ain't found that yet. It'd be so easy just to hunker down in those blankets, wrap all up in wet wool and Rogue and forget about the rest of the world--but damned if I haven't picked up a conscience from somewhere. And damned if I'm going to let all the people here braving the White Devil down just because I can't take it any more.

It'll take more than a little Armageddon to bring Gambit down.


End file.
